Monday

“You should all feel warm today,” said Sam Zales to a crowd assembled in Battin Hall for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Zales spoke at a rally filled with performances and speakers to kick off the MLK Day of Service, where Zales said more than 2,000 people were being helped in various ways around Lexington and Waltham.

Volunteer events ranged from a lunch with Lexington seniors in the affordable housing developments to making Valentine’s Day cards for those in the hospital and in the military overseas, to collecting and distributing donations to various food banks.

Zales, who is a member of the Lexington MLK Commemoration Committee, which organizes the annual celebration to celebrate civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, held on the third Monday of every January. The event, which helps to celebrate King and the day of service, included performances by local poet Regie O’Hare Gibson and the Special Needs Arts Program (SNAP) Choral Group.

Kevin Gillis, another member of the committee, said these events are what is passed to the next generation.

“We don’t get to give our kids many things, so our names and our legacies are important,” Gillis said.

Gibson, a Lexington author and poet, gave a dedication to equality and King in the form of poetry and music.

“We again gather because it is time, and at this time our nation finds it has come to a cross in the road,” Gibson said. “Once again we are being told we should be divided and afraid, goaded by the fear that we’ve been made into a second-rate nation.”

Gibson called on the audience to transcend inequality and racism in his own, poetic way.

“Dr. King, we are here today because we love this country dearly, though we feel weighed down, and weary, and sometimes forget what you, and Gandhi and (Walt) Whitman meant by love a country that knows no limit,” Gibson said. “We’ve been in the mountain of war, the mountain of violence, and the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, move to the oasis of justice.”

After his reading, there was a standing ovation.

Gibson and a four-piece band then performed two original compositions that were part jazz, blues and performance poetry, at one point eliciting a call-and-response with the audience. Instructing the audience to scat, or create singing melodies without making words, the whole room found itself a part of the performance.

The Special Needs Arts Program Chorus performed renditions of “This Little Light of Mine,” “We Shall Overcome” and “I’m on My Way.” The audience was given the opportunity to join in.

“We will be projecting the lyrics on the projector so that every voice is heard and singing in unison,” said Gwen Wong, a member of the organizing committee, who introduced the SNAP choral group.

Ephraim Weiss, a Town Meeting member and longtime resident of Lexington, said even in Lexington racism is a problem. Growing up in New York City before moving to Lexington, he said he was confronted with prejudice because he was Jewish.

“A lot of old-timers have a feeling of ownership over the town,” said Weiss, who helped start the Lexington Civil Rights Committee in the 1960s. “I was aware of this all the time.”

Weiss said decades ago, when there were extreme demonstrations of racial prejudice, and today, when the expression might be more “subtle,” one hard-and-fast rule still applies to combat it.

“You’ve got to talk with people you disagree with,” Weiss said. “If you don’t, you’ll never learning anything; they’ll never learn anything.”

Nelson Ortiz, who is involved with Grace Chapel and helped to facilitate MLK events, reflected on the problem of racism in light of events in Charleston, South Carolina, and Ferguson, Missouri.

“We live in a very troubled society at times, but there are people doing very great things,” said Ortiz.